First Cuppa Coffee – Monday, April 2, 2012 : Cash for Carl Edition

Thanks for the cash, Carl… The OB Rag April Fool’s post yesterday claiming that Fox News had purchased this site was a big hit with readers. Obviously, for those of you that missed the “sarcasm” tag, it was in jest. We’re all still poor this morning. A whole bunch of other progressive leaning blogs did hit the jackpot this weekend, thanks to Mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio. Surfers logging in from computers ID’d as being located in the San Diego area are seeing DeMaio’s ads on websites like Daily Kos, Truthdig, Talking Points Memo and The Nation. It is a little strange reading about the latest GOP outrage with DeMaio’s beady little eyes staring at you from the screen.

TV’s Morning Madness…. Former Alaska Gov. (And reality show host) Sarah Palin has agreed to co-host the Todayshow Tuesday. She’ll be lining up against Katie Couric, who be stepping in over at Good Morning America. There’s been no word from either network over whether Couric’s “gotcha moment” video interview with Palin will be rebroadcast on either network. NBC’s not taking any chances on losing the ratings war this week, though… other high profile guests appearing this week include: “Octomom” Nadya Suleman, Kim Kardashian, the Duggar family and rapper Nicki Minaj. Observers expect the nation’s IQ to drop by five to nine points this week.

GOP tanking with women voters…. The focus on social issues by GOP Presidential contenders and Republican Congressional leaders has created a growing gender gap amongst potential voters. Although women have historically been more inclined to vote for Democratic Presidential candidates, Barack Obama’s advantages among women voters over his GOP rivals are striking according to polling conducted by the PewResearchCenter. For Republican congressional candidates, the issue is compounded; Not only do they fall on the wrong side of the polling on the contraception debate, but every day the talk about it is a day they don’t talk about jobs. And Democrats are reveling in reminding voters of that fact.

Occupy the Media… Today marks the launch of Occupy.com, a nonprofit multimedia and news-aggregation site with, according to Mother Jones, “financial backing from Hollywood, lots of complicated internal politics, and a plan to become a must-read for a new generation of activists.” An early morning visit to the site reveals links to print, videos, music, and photography from across the internet, with an emphasis on artsy and documentary-style content. Hopefully they’ll avoid the cheap and sensationalist approach that’s come to dominate other aggregational sites like Huffington Post.

The UTSD gets it right….. The daily paper’s multipart series on emergency care in San Diego offers remarkable insight into the giant holes in the health care “safety net” that do little or nothing to help the City’s neediest while clogging emergency care facilities. The words are there…like…. it’s actually cheaper to proactively care for the needs of the homeless that it is to use the City’s hospitals as dumping off space… It’d be interesting to ask our Mayoral candidates about the implications being raised in this series. And, of course, there’s little or nothing in the articles about how we got to where we are…God forbid that anybody should make a connection between “budget cuts” and bad policy.

Thought for the day, courtesy of @LOLGOP on Twitter… And now millions of people who bought Mega Millions tickets know what it feels like to vote for the GOP.

Are you still working your April Fools Day magic Doug/Shane? When Ann Romney was asked about Mitt Romney appearing too stiff, she responded “I guess we better unzip him and let the real Mitt Romney out because he is not!”

And one of the lucky duckies who won the Mega Million lottery was struck by lightening that evening. http://tinyurl.com/cfa2m85 Sounds like OBRag satire to me.

As if Fox News wasn’t making our citizens dumb enough by themselves, now NBC has to get into the act? Are they deliberately trying to compete with Fox to see who can misinform their viewers the most? Or to see whose viewers actually know LESS about current events than those who watch no news at all?

Yup, and they’re taking responsibility for those actions. They admitted their editing faux paus and announced an “internal investigation” into the matter. You would NEVER see Fox own up to their misinformation campaign. They deliberately do it. It’s why surveys found that Fox viewers were typically LESS informed than people who watched no news at all. That’s tough to do.

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